My post of two days ago, "Vanessa Williams in Double Indemnity?" was actually about the television show Ugly Betty. I expressed an opinion there about how gorgeous cast member Rebecca Romijn is too obviously a "genetic girl" to be believable as a male-to-female transsexual, and my musings elicited comments from a couple of readers in the transgender world.

Both these readers, Kelly Shore and tlover, directed me to photo links of very beautiful "t-girls"--transgendered gals. The links are in the comments section of that post.

I didn't mean to imply that some t-girls are not as beautiful or passable as genetic girls. That would be a ridiculous statement. I just felt that since Rebecca Romijn is a genetic girl, she does not demonstrate just how beautiful or passable transgendered women are. I know that Rebecca Romijn is simply playing a role. Just as James Cagney wasn't really a gangster, and George Reeves wasn't Superman, I know that Rebecca is not a male-to-female transsexual; nor does she have to be one in order to play the part. But since the point of the episode I saw the other night was that her character was a champion of transgendered glamour in the mainstream fashion world, I felt it would have been better if the program didn't use a beautiful genetic girl in the role, but a beautiful t-girl instead. I didn't make this point fully because I regrettably jotted too hasty and brief a post. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

The comment by tlover has directed my attention to the transgendered porn star Danielle Foxxx--and she's what I would have preferred on the show. Danielle actually IS what Romijn's character is supposed to be. She is beautiful and feminine and shapely and could easily be on the cover of a mainstream mag. She is a real example of transgendered allure, as are the other t-girls in the links Kelly Shore and tlover indicated.

Obviously, Rebecca Romijn is a marquee name, and that's important to a top network program, and I'm sure that's one reason she got the part. But someday a real t-girl will also be a marquee actress of note, and will get to play such roles.

Finally I saw a new movie that I think has the quality of lasting greatness. Breach, starring Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillippe, really haunts the mind. It is the true story of Robert Hanssen, the top FBI intelligence expert who was also a mole for many years and sold classified information to our enemies until he was caught in 2001 and sentenced to prison.

Breach, directed by Billy Ray, is a low key film that lets the characters live their lives in front of you, and gives you enough telling detail to allow you to draw your own conclusions about why Hanssen did it. Cooper plays a Hanssen who is obsessed with his Catholicism to the point of near mania, but who also secretly videotapes his wife during sex; and who stews in a resentful perception of the FBI as a macho gun culture that only promotes the action-oriented agents to the limelight. The clues to Hanssen's motivations are given in intimate scenes of dialogue and confrontation that make you think back to those scenes days after you see the movie in order to explain to yourself what might have compelled this man to betray his country. "I do matter!" he cries out drunkenly in one scene, where his ego is threatened. "I matter!" Cooper portrays a dangerous adult, but gives us also a boy still inside Hanssen, unceasingly angry at his strict, disapproving father.

Ryan Phillippe is understated and effective in his role as Hanssen's clerk, who helps set up Hanssen to be caught in the act of passing information. The film gives you a real sense of the personal toll of this kind of undercover work as Phillippe's character strains not to tell his young wife what his job is really all about.

The only weak link in the film is Laura Linney, who plays the agent in charge of the operation to catch Hanssen. I liked her "I-am-woman-hear-me-roar" bite in the recent domestic drama The Squid and the Whale, but in Breach she plays it so tough as nails that she's almost a caricature of the female overseer. She's like a feminist Dracula, sucking the testosterone out of all the men in the room. I hope I'll be able to blot this performance out of the Linney resume in my mind or it will be hard to enjoy her in other films. But Chris Cooper is so good in the part of Hanssen, makes him not simply an evil figure but one of emotional scars and gigantic hubris, that the film stays solidly on course. Breach is well-balanced; even though Cooper's portrayal of Hanssen vividly shows us the emotions within this enigmatic figure, we never forget the treason Hanssen committed.

A friend out at my freelance client's office in New Jersey urged me to give the show Ugly Betty a try, so I did tonight. A number of things struck me. One was the absurdity of the gorgeously undeniable GG (or "genetic girl") Rebecca Romijn playing a male-to-female transsexual; if there were surgeons who could perform miracles like that, I would consider the operation myself. My life would certainly be a heck of a lot easier with everybody wanting to be my slave and lick my heels.

America Ferrarra was funny and sweet in her sentimental good-hearted role as the braces-wearing fashion victim Betty; but the revelation to me was Vanessa Williams as the evil magazine editor. A scene in which she tempts an alcoholic with a glass of vodka shows that Vanessa has the chops to play a real out-and-out testicle-chomping femme fatale. How about a new version of Double Indemnity with Vanessa in the Barbara Stanwyck part? I'm sure any number of actors would enjoy matching wits with her in that classic noir story of male-female sparring. And I would enjoy watching her shake that butt as she led her victim to prurient purgatory across a forty foot screen.

Man, I had restless and crazy dreams last night, none of which I can remember. But I kept waking up, tangled in the covers...

Was it the Pizza Bolognese that I ate? Pizza with ground beef and olives, it was very tasty but quite heavy. It's making my mouth water, though, just to write about it.

The glass of merlot with which I washed it down was good too.

Or maybe what I was reading made me toss and turn? Before I went to sleep, I was perusing an old paperback which described the nightclub and sex scene in Japan in 1965. It also included an anecdotal history of geisha and bath houses. Makes me wonder if there is a Japanese style bath house in New York City where a non-Japanese like yours truly could go soak and then get bathed and massaged by a pretty attendant. According to the book's description, first you sit in a steam bath, then in a hot water bath, then sit on a stool and get scrubbed and washed and rinsed. It sounds like paradise.

I could use a little paradise for a change of pace. After all, any day now I'm going to get my forms back from the accountant, and see exactly how much I'll have to shell out in self-employment taxes as a freelance worker. I'll really NEED a cute gal to wipe the sweat off my brow then...

Maybe the few Japanese strippers in the clubs know if there's such a bath house in town? I might have to get a lapdance from one of them to find out...although they might not want to tell me for fear of losing my dollars to another type of pleasure venue. Well, I'm sure if I do some research, I could find the answers.

Yesterday at the office of my freelance client in New Jersey, a good friend and I were discussing our childhood fascination with performing magic tricks. Like myself, he had given shows when he was a kid. We swapped memories of the big fat mail order magic catalogs that made ten year old boys drool and dream, and the magic shops of our youth--his visits to Lou Tannen's in Manhattan, and mine to Ireland's in downtown Chicago, where the pros dazzled us with their sleight of hand.

My friend had brought in one of the classic pocket tricks that he still owned, and he showed it to me. He asked me to put an identifying mark on a coin and then give it to him. I put a red ink dot on a nickel, gave it to my friend, and three seconds later he handed me a small box sealed with rubber bands. I opened the box and inside was another tightly bound box, and within that, a small bag--containing my coin.

This being one of the standards from magic kits, I knew its secret, had performed it myself to awestruck kids at birthday parties in 1961 (well, I hoped they were awestruck), and yesterday when my friend asked me if I wanted to know how it was done, if I didn't already, I admitted that I was indeed privy to the mystery. I almost felt guilty in confessing this, because I really didn't want to detract from the fun he'd had in showing me the trick! He asked me why I let him perform it then. I said it was fun to see it again even though I knew the secret. You see, it wasn't the trick itself, but watching his pleasure in performing it and feeling my old delight that such a trick (which is simple but cleverly achieved) had been invented.

Sometimes people tell me jokes that I've heard before, and I never stop them. It's not the punchline, but the process of the storytelling, the rhythm of the words, the pleasure of the sharing between entertainer and audience--that's what means the most to me. Why else watch a favorite movie over and over? I already know the story. Whether it's magic, jokes, movies or even striptease, I'm enjoying the company of other people as we share our mutual delight in performance. Whether the performer is my friend with a cool pocket trick, a favorite stripper locking her legs upside down on a pole, or Robert De Niro in one of his great roles, I'm ready to relive the moments. I am a most willing audience.